The field of the invention is in the electrical current measuring art. Electrical shunts for current measurement in which the voltage across the shunt is proportional to the current flowing through the shunt are very widely used and have been known for many years. The conventional shunt is a low resistive device, so as to minimally affect the circuit being measured. A short, large cross section, constantan strap is a typical embodiment of a prior art shunt. With the advent of high current pulsed circuits such as are used in radar and other high frequency devices, it has become desirable to measure the rise characteristics of large current pulses and also the wave shape of short duration pulses. The conventional strap shunt while entirely suitable for steady state current measurements, inherently has some inductance, even though very small. The inductance while generally of such a low value that its effect on the operating equipment being measured is negligible, the inductance is not negligible to the measuring equipment. An inductance spike or ringing characteristic appears in the measuring equipment that may mask rapidly changing current characteristics of the operating equipment. Thus, the measurement obtained is of questionable value as to its being truly representative of the current flowing to the operating equipment.
Non-inductive resistors are well known. They are frequently fabricated by forming the resistance wire into a hairpin loop then winding the wire on a form. A resistance value relatively free of inductive effects is obtained. However, these devices are resistors having appreciable resistance. A current measuring shunt should have a very, very low resistance so as to not alter the operating equipment. Thus, the conventional non-inductive resistor techniques are entirely unsuitable for current measuring shunts.